[Interview] Nancy Kilpatrick, editor of EVOLVE

After the eight parts of the EVOLVE anthology nicely stacked in my archives, I'm now taking on the master mind behind the anthology, Nancy Kilpatrick.

BIO: Award-winning author Nancy Kilpatrick has published eighteen novels, over one hundred and ninety short stories, five collections of stories, and has edited nine other anthologies. Much of her body of work involves vampires. Nancy writes dark fantasy, horror, mysteries and erotic horror, under her own name, her nom de plume Amarantha Knight, and her newest pen name Desirée Knight (Amarantha’s younger sister!) Besides writing novels and short stories, and editing anthologies, she has scripted four issues of VampErotic comics. As well, she’s penned radio scripts, a stage-play, and the non-fiction book The Goth Bible: A Compendium for the Darkly Inclined (St. Martin’s Press — October 2004).

Nancy won the Arthur Ellis Award for best mystery story, is a three times Bram Stoker finalist and a five times finalist for the Aurora Award.

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Harry Markov: Hello, Miss Kilpatrick and thank you for the opportunity to do this interview. It’s a pleasure to have you on Temple Library Reviews. Your anthology EVOLVE collects stories, which show the next step in the evolution for vampires. One more time for our readers, what was the inspiration behind this theme?

Nancy Kilpatrick: It’s a pleasure to be here, Harry.. Thanks for having me.

I’ve been a huge fan of vampire literature and mythology for most of my life, and a collector of books, magazines, movie posters, and general vampirobilia. I know quite a bit about the undead and have also written quite a bit on the motif.

Last year, I edited an anthology with David Morrell called Tesseracts Thirteen, horror and dark fantasy stories, and because of the way that anthology headed and also because David and I had to both agree to include a story, no vampire fiction appeared in that book. Tesseracts Thirteen was an open anthology and we had close to 200 submissions. There were seven vampire stories I thought were exceptional and which showed the vampire that we are going to be seeing in the very near future. I felt it was a shame to let these stories go, although I had no doubt that they would all find a home eventually. David wasn’t free to edit another anthology so I approached the publisher (Edge SF&F) and asked if I could edit an all-vampire anthology that included these stories and a bunch more. I wanted to call it Evolve. The publisher had only done one horror/dark fantasy book before, the anthology David and I co-edited, but he jumped right in with both feet for Evolve.

Over the years, I’ve always been asking myself ‘What next?” when it comes to vampires. A lot of my writing is slightly ahead of the curve because of that ongoing question. I’d had in the back of my mind for quite a while to edit another vampire anthology (I edited Love Bites, an erotic vampire anthology in 1995), and when everything fell into place for Evolve it seemed like the right subject, the right angle on that subject, and perfect timing.

HM: Linked to the same question, why is there a need to show evolution? Vampires have usurped the throne as the most popular creature in pop culture and don’t seem to let it go.

NK: I think it’s innate to us human beings to always want to know what happens next. Vampires have indeed jumped to most-popular-supernatural and I think that position is secure for a while, at least until the end of the Twilight movie series and True Blood TV program.

For me, because I’ve studied vampires from the first stories in English and French, and the mythologies that go back to the Epic of Gilgamesh, I have seen the evolution of the vampire over many centuries. The creature has evolved along with the humans that have envisioned it. Just as everyone is wanting to know what will happen in the future, what about 2012, and beyond?, I think the vampire also has a future and some people will be fascinated to learn more about it.

HM: Nowadays, we can’t talk about vampires without mentioning Meyer. I’ve read accusations that vampires have been officially defanged by Meyer. Same accusations claim that vamps have gone too mainstream to be considered horrifying.

NK: I see the Twilight version of the undead as just one type of vampire. This isn’t the entire picture. Twilight is not the history of the undead, and it won’t be the future. Edward Cullen has been called The Good Boyfriend, the one who is kind, understanding, and focuses on the safety and care of the girlfriend (Bella), and who possesses superior self-control. This, of course, appeals to girls and young women. What female wouldn’t want such a lover? He is the fantasy, the ideal, the dream boyfriend. For older women, Cullen is a rekindling of a girlish fantasy. This is romance fiction at its best and that’s the reader/viewer that has been snagged. Don’t forget, the publisher Harlequin is an empire with an enormous chunk of the print market--I’ve heard it said 80% worldwide. That’s a lot of romance and a lot of women are interested in romance. The romantic hero today just happens to be a vampire.

But vampires are bigger than this. They have been around a LONG time and have appeared in various forms, in many different countries and cultures, in fact almost every country and culture. Mostly, they have been super dangerous to human beings. That is the core of the undead: they are predators, we are the prey. That won’t change regardless of how they manifest currently. Anyone who wants to see the dangerous vampire should just hang on--that creature will be back in a new and more deadly way.

HM: But shouldn’t vampires remain a horror icon. The vampire started its career as a monster and it would seem logical to stay true to its roots by scaring and not flirting with its victim.

NK: Maybe in a perfect world that would be so. But if you think of various incarnations of vampires, some have been humorous—Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (the movie has Lugosi playing Dracula); The Fearless Vampire Killers; Warhol’s Dracula—to name a few. You could say that vampires (and other supernaturals) shouldn’t be humorous, it goes against the monster being scary. But they have been humorous. There are always variations on a theme, that’s part of any icon.

HM: You hinted that the vampire has not lost its edge, even despite the sex symbol status and crossover to romance. Can you name a few authors from the 00s, who write a mean and scary vampire?

NK: I think anyone who reads Evolve will fund some pretty frightening vampire stories. Check out Gemma Files’ story for starters.

HM: With so many bold writers changing the mythos, surrounding vampires, are you concerned about them losing their identity. I am referring to vampires being psychic, walk during day light, be a rare gene and suffer no harm from holy symbols.

NK: The mythos has changed with every writer since vampires have seen print.. The vampire we tend to think of as the archetypal vampire is really a Hollywood invention. Don’t forget, Bram Stoker’s Dracula walked in daylight in London. There have been many vampires who have not been harmed by holy symbols. The idea of the vampire being psychic is an old one too, and they have pretty well always had mesmerizing abilities, even if it’s only to scare their victim into a paralyzed state. Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, written in 1954, presents a world where much of the population has died from a pandemic and only one human being survives-- all other survivors have been infected by a virus and are now vampires. Fritz Leiber’s short story “The Girl With the Hungry Eyes” is a classic, written in 1949, and the vampire has the ability to create an obsession in a photographer.

I think it’s the job of writers to bend and shape and expand on mythos. We always need to push the envelope and create something new. As long as an author sets up the fictional tropes and sticks to the mythological elements he/she has created and makes them believable to the reader, the writer can change the vampire to conform to this new reality and it will work. After all, what’s the point of writing Dracula over and over?

Now, having said that, there are purists out there who are hell-bent on preserving Dracula as the be-all and end-all of vampires. But if you view the vampire as an archetypal energy, which I do, then you have to accept that the energy shifts and alters, changing with the times while still maintaining its essence, the core of what it is to be a vampire. If the vampire can’t be part of the time frame in which it is written, it has no relevance.

HM: Speaking of the psychic, what do you think of the energy vampire? These are a lot less connected with the actual vampire per se, but they share a name.

NK: If you think of vampire as predator, that predatory quality can take any form. Whatever keeps the undead alive, so to speak, is what they want human beings for. That could be blood, it could be sex, it could be energy, it could be souls. I wrote a story called “Leesville, LA” which was published in Freak Show (ed. F. Paul Wilson) that featured a vampire that stole dreams from people. And people can relate to vampires that drain our energy because we’ve all met people like that and we secretly call them vampires.

HM: Speaking of all the conceptions connected with vampires, which is your favorite? The stake through the heart? The garlic? Or maybe the no reflection?

NK: I’m not sure I have a favorite. A lot depends on how these ideas are presented in fiction and film. If the means of dispatch makes sense and is cleverly put forth in the story, then it should work for me. What doesn’t work for me is something silly and illogical, out of left-field, tossed in by a sloppy writer who can’t be bothered to make all the parts fit seamlessly in the plot.

HM: With all this empowerment and ever-growing sexappeal, can you say that people are projecting a wish fulfillment fantasy with the vampire as an ultimate human: eternal, alluring and undefeatable?

NK: Absolutely. That’s the time-frame we live in. Everyone wants to live forever, and eternal youth means botoxing your way through life, I guess, for those who indulge. Everyone wants sex appeal, so alluring is up on the want list. We all know that sex gets you a lot in this world. Undefeatable? Well, you don’t need to go far to find people who want to be all powerful, to vanquish those who would harm them. There are lots of ego-maniacs walking the streets, in case you hadn’t noticed!

There is definitely wish fulfillment in the vampire fantasy. It looks pretty appealing to be a vampire. All the benefits and just this one itty bitty drawback--you have to kill people for their blood. Of course, the modern retelling has virtually eliminated that negative so that vampires can live on animal blood, they can live on synthetic blood, they can take some blood without killing and they can even fast for ferociously long periods of time. What a win-win state of being? But this is where we have to ask the question: if the vampire is not a threat to human beings, is he/she a vampire? Personally, I think that even Edward Cullen, under the right circumstances, would kill Bella. And anyone who has read the last book in the series and/or knows what’s coming in the final films knows what he’s capable of.

HM: And wouldn’t the book be a bit more satisfying, if Edward did kill and eat Bella? A small reminder that while the vampire has learned to kiss, he always bites.

NK: It would be satisfying for some. But the readers of the Twilight books are looking for something else, aren’t they, something more than the vicious vampire? I think what we have to realize is that now, in the 21st century, the vampire has altered. Nothing lasts forever and this version of the vampire won’t go on forever, but it’s here now. And there’s a more adult approach is in the TV series True Blood, based on Charlaine Harris’ books, where you get eroticism AND blood drinking, so there’s a further evolution.

HM: Focusing on the sexappeal, vampires have progressed from nightmares to the perfected to-die-for lovers. Why was the vampire chosen as a sex symbol? It’s a corpse, after all. You are an expert on vampires in popular culture. Have you pondered on this?

NK: The vampire hasn’t looked like a corpse for almost 200 years, in fiction anyway. In the first stories in English: “The Vampyre” by John Polidore; Varney the Vampire by Thomas Preskett Prest; Dracula by Bram Stoker; Carmilla by Sheridan LeFanu, none of these vampires look like a cadaver. They don’t smell bad or reek of the grave. They are, in fact, aristocrats, cultured, moving around in society, which really is what makes them more dangerous than the mythological vampires that preceded them, who did crawl from the grave, dirt still clinging, reeking of putrefaction. The 4 vampires mentioned above are flirty. They are seductive creatures, which is how they charm victims into their realm. Said the spider to the fly! What we see today is not so different. Of course, we no longer have counts and countesses galloping around the countryside in horse-drawn carriages. Now we have special families or groupings that are often wealthy because, after all, if one lives more than one lifetime, finances are generally sorted out.

HM: The fascination with vampires has crossed into our own world with live, actual vampires, emulating the fictitious life style. Have you ever met one of these individuals?

NK: I’ve met people who dress as vampires, people who wear vampire contacts and have their eye teeth filed to points. I’ve met people who are blood fetishists who drink blood (a little). And lots of people who make the Goth/vampiric crossover in terms of clothing. All this is pretty common and has been for the last 15 years or so in most major cities. Have I ever met a real vampire, as in the live-forever, back-from-the-dead vampire? No.

HM: Also, do you believe this to be taking fiction a tad too seriously?

NK: Fiction is, first and foremost, storytelling. People live in stories. Stories capture readers and allow them to live in their imagination for a while. There’s so much about the vampire that is intriguing and it’s understandable that with the popularity of books like Interview with the Vampire, cultural imaginations were charged up, especially among teenagers and young people. And that has lasted 40 years! Youth is the time of trying things on for size, like lifestyles. It’s learning how to relate outside the familiar world of family, school, religion and community, relating to the larger world. It’s the time when the idea that there IS a larger world becomes apparent. White Wolf created Vampire: The Masquerade, a role-playing game, where the gamers could go and act out a vampire persona and interact with others acting out roles. Kind of like ad-lib theater but within the strictures of the imaginary world. I co-wrote a novel in that world, As One Dead. I see this role-playing as fun. And I see people acting and dressing like vampires as fun. Just like people who go to Formula One races dressed like the race-car drivers, or drive their own Honda fast through the streets, pretending they are competing at the Indy 500. They are pretending to be racers because that’s fun, and I think there are a lot of people right now, especially youth, wanting to be part of what looks to be an exciting and amazing world, the world of the vampire.

Are there people who take it too far? Of course. There always are. Just like the race-car enthusiast who breaks the speed limit and hits a pedestrian. There’s always a fine line and one hopes most people know the difference between fantasy and reality. But not everyone does, sadly. And that makes them a danger, often but not only always, to themselves.

HM: While you were editing your anthology did you hesitate as to which stories to keep and whether to substitute them with others? I imagine this being a normal occurrence in the making of an anthology.

NK: Evolve was an invitational anthology, so not really (an open anthology like Tesseracts Thirteen is different). I had the original seven stories and I then approached specific writers whose work I knew and asked them for stories. Partly I did this because we wanted to do a world launch at the 2010 World Horror Convention in England, and to get the book to the printer required a speedy compilation.

Word spreads and I did have a couple of stories sent to me by people I didn’t know. If the stories had worked, they would have been in the book, but sadly, they didn’t. As it turned out, because I gave the writers strict parameters as to what I wanted, and also gave them a quickie history lesson on the vampire up to what we are seeing now, the contributors were able to see where I was coming from and want I wanted and, amazingly, they came through and met my vision.

HM: As far as anthologies go, I always imagined that the editor has a certain inner rhythm, which he/she follows to arrange the stories within the pages. Did you have an exact pattern behind the order? Can you perhaps mention a few of the tricks you use to order all the stories?

NK: It’s interesting that you mention an inner rhythm. In a sense, that’s exactly how I order stories. There are, of course, more conscious factors to take into consideration, for instance, I don’t want a bunch of long stories together, or a bunch of short stories together. As an editor, I want to have a flow so that more serious stories are broken up with lighter pieces, otherwise the tone gets set too strongly and the reader can’t make the leap to a light piece. Generally I order an anthology so that it can be read from front to back. Readers don’t always read that way. Sometimes they pick out shorter or longer stories to read because of the time they have available. Sometimes they will immediately select stories from authors whose work they know. But many people do read from start to finish and that has to have a rhythm to it, a movement, so that by the end there’s a feeling that these stories do make a whole. I think a lot of the ordering is unknown until much later in the process, at least for me. As I reread stories I’ve chosen, I begin to get a feel for what the anthology is really about and I try to lay out the stories in a way that speaks to that larger idea. I generally have a good idea of which story should lead and which should end, and these are set for many different reasons but mainly because they are strong stories that set the tone or conclude the tone. The process involves a lot of thought but, at the end, it seems magical to me in that somehow, all of these stories are ordered in a way that works for me and, I hope, for readers.

HM: What is the importance of the first story in an anthology and what is the role of the last one? What did you want to convey with your choices?

NK: The first story should set the tone for what follows and tell readers, okay, you can expect stories that are generally like this one. If there is a major name in an anthology and their story fits that criteria, that story will usually go first for name recognition among readers. Most people seem to go into a store, open a book, look at the first story and read a bit, so it has to grab people enough that they will buy the book. The last story also has prominence in that it sets up a feeling that the reader will take away with him or her, that allows the reader to feel the whole was worthwhile because it led to this type of conclusion which, in fact, rounds off everything they’ve read.

HM: A last parting question. What would you do, if you meet a live vampire face to face?

NK: That depends. If they had that look in the eye that I was potential food, I’d run. If there was some sentience there and some desire for communication, I’d take advantage of this unique opportunity and learn what I could about what it’s like to be undead.

HM: Thank you for the time.

NK: It’s been my pleasure, Harry. Thank you!

[Reviewer Time] Charles Tan from Bibliophile Stalker

With this Sunday’s edition Reviewer Time will close down permanently. I had a lot of fun for the last two years with the occasional stops and starts and the over 30 interviews I conducted with some of the brightest and most intriguing bloggers, veterans and rookies alike. But I do think all things must come to an end, which is why Charles Tan, creator of The Bibliophile Stalker, will be my last guest at the Reviewer Time feature. I think it was a good run. Reasons to quit include: time deficiency and the feeling that I repeat the same questions over and over again. With above 30 interviews now completed I think that may be the case.

Anyway, enjoy!

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Harry Makov: Welcome, Charles. I am very pleased to have you here on Reviewer Time. As per the ages old custom, let’s start with basic introductions. Who is Charles Tan and what does he do in off-line life?

Charles Tan: Offline, I'm an editorial assistant and sometimes managing editor for a local publishing company (that sometimes does events such as concerts). As for who I am, I previously defined myself by my hobbies, and I basically went through different fandoms over the years: video games, comics, collectible card games, RPGs, anime/manga, etc.

HM: As an editorial assistant, what do you assist in? From Twitter I have learned that you have helped to edit anthologies. Is that close to the truth?

CT: Actually, no. I work for a magazine company that occasionally does concerts. There are actually several publications that I work on (and one in which I'm the Managing Editor) and my role really varies. Sometimes, it's simply answering the phone and contacting the contributors. Sometimes, it's arranging full-scale photo shoots. Sometimes, it's editing texts, creating the pagination, coordinating with the printer, etc.

The editing the anthologies part is more of my non-day job. The Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and Best of Philippine Speculative Fiction was my brainchild for example and funded by me. Recently I helped Lavie Tidhar with the upcoming Apex Book of World SF 2 but that's really about it.

I'm not the next John Joseph Adams for example. :)

HM: Even if you are not involved in assembling anthologies, you seem to pay attention to the latest releases. Therefore I deduct you enjoy reading them a lot. What do you find fascinating about anthologies? Do you pay attention to how the stories are aligned? What importance does the opening and closing stories carry? Basically I am looking for the hidden blueprints and the logic behind anthologies.

CT: For anthologies, it really depends on the anthology. Not all anthologies, for example, is simply about assembling a set of stories. What's the agenda of the editor? What does it try to elicit from the reader? Was the editor successful?

Yes, I pay attention to how the stories are aligned, the importance of the opening and closing stories, etc. The problem with blueprints is that it can't be universally applied. What works for one anthology might not work for another. For example, what impressed me with The New Weird by Jeff VanderMeer is the mix of fiction and non-fiction, the inclusion of stories that are pre-New Weird as well as New Weird itself.

Or The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror series (edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, later Gavin Grant and Kelly Link). Arguably the best part of it are the lengthy summations of the year, as well as the long honorable mentions list.

Admittedly, some readers simply read the story they want and ignore the rest. That's perfectly possible and legitimate. But as a discerning reader, I know that any anthology isn't arbitrarily assembled. There's a method to the madness, so to speak. That's not to say every editor succeeds in what they attempt to do, but there's also a level where you want to read the text under the editor's own terms (i.e. reading the stories in chronological order).

HM: We all have one of those moments of epiphany, when we realize that we will be tied with fiction for a life time. When did your never-ending affair with books and literature begin?

CT: I was an early reader but honestly didn't become acquainted with genre until my early teens. As a child, I was interested in dinosaurs and mythology, but didn't really end up reading novels. Instead, I grew up reading gaming magazines. Later on, some of these magazines had pop culture references to authors like Tolkien and Lovecraft, and that certainly piqued my interest.

I think the trigger for me being the person you now know me is due to my decision to pursue becoming a writer (as opposed to simply being a reader). It was that shift that enabled me to be more critical of what I read, as well as to open up myself to possibilities, instead of simply reading what I was previously reading. It also helped that the Philippine bookstore scene was changing then as in the 80's and early 90's, readers here had to settle for whatever the bookstore monopoly imported.

HM: When did you start receiving books from outside the Philippines that weren’t imported? I am living in the same conditions. What’s widely available and celebrated in the UK & US, is largely unknown, unless we are talking household names. Like Gaiman.

CT: Depends. I'm friends with some authors, even before I started reviewing regularly, so they did send me some books. When I started doing my interview series, however, that's probably when I started getting books for reviews (due to my reputation by then, not because I was doing interviews per se). For aspiring reviewers, I think it's fair to say that when you start out, you shouldn't be expecting review copies and simply review books that are available to you (even if you have to buy them).

Another of my edges is the fact that I gladly accept PDF copies for review--because I understand the expenses of mailing books, and the delay one experiences (and in some cases, never receive due to the post office, customs, or some other complication).

HM: Speaking of Gaiman, you had the honor of meeting the man, who as Internet tells me [aka your blog] is an icon for you. Do tell how that meeting went.

CT: Gaiman's not really an icon for me. I respect the person, but there are other writers I'm a bigger fan of. Honestly, I'm probably the Philippine's "non-fan" fan of Gaiman.

The meeting was nothing special. It was a book signing so it was pretty procedural. There was one incident though when the couple (literally) behind me proposed via Neil Gaiman...

HM: Which probably means that I need to re-learn how to read properly. To retrace a bit, you mentioned that you strive towards a writing career. I have planned to ask that on my own accord, because it’s interesting to see how many reviewers are writers. I do believe that blogging is a fantastic way to meet new authors in person or through e-mail interviews. What’s your stance on the matter?

CT: It depends. Sometimes, it's in your best interest not to be reviewing books, because they're your peers. Some professional writers have been burned by this, but others have also established their contacts through this. It's all dependent on a lot of factors.

Here's the thing. What's your game plan?

If you want to be a writer, I think it's important to plan to be a writer.

If you want to be a reviewer, plan to be a reviewer.

I don't think it's necessary that in order to be a professional writer, you need to be a reviewer first. Or expect that there's a direct link between the two.

I reviewed books because I wanted to review books, not because I thought it would help my writing career (or lack thereof).

What's great about interviewing authors however is that I get to pick their brain.

HM: What genres do you enjoy writing in and what publications have you had, if any?

CT: I think most of my writing gravitates towards fantasy. As far as fiction is concerned, it's mostly local publications, with my first international sale going to the anthology The Dragon and The Stars edited by Derwin Mak and Eric Choi, published by DAW.

HM: Let’s walk through the history of your blogging career and stop at 2006, when you decided to create your own blog. How did that decision form? What was the idea and intentions behind the Bibliophile Stalker?

CT: I was actually blogging as early as November 2001 but the problem with my blogging was that it was disparate and had no focus. Because I've had other hobbies over the years, the content of my posts fluctuated between disparate subjects.

As a writing discipline, I told myself that I would produce blog content on a regular basis, as opposed to simply being sporadic. And then I latched on to fiction because I was feeling passionate the most about it at the time (my other passion at the time was tabletop RPGs and was active in documenting the podcast scene).

At the end of the day, my blog became a blog that I sought for in other blogs. It had regular reviews, opinion pieces, and interviews with people in the industry that I felt were overlooked or aren't as popular as they're supposed to be. And I didn't want to limit it to authors but others who don't receive enough credit, such as editors, publicists, etc. It was also a continuous challenge for me on how to evolve and deliver additional content that was relevant to my readers.

HM: And yes, this is inevitable. What’s with the creepy name?

CT: I like to freak out people. :) In real life, I tend to be invisible, to the point that automatic doors don't open, or people enter the room and miss me even when I'm in the center of their vision, so I think "stalker" is an apt descriptor.

HM: You are based in the Philippines and can observe the native SFF scene, which I am pretty sure is not very well known to Westerners. What is the difference between Philippine SFF and what is currently sold in the West?

CT: For me, the biggest difference is volume and awareness. We don't end up publishing a lot of fiction (genre or otherwise) for various reasons, and even if you do get published, people aren't generally aware of it.

As for the writing itself, it's a mixed bag. There is some fiction that's obviously Western-inspired, but we also have stories that deal with our own mythology that's quite unique from others. We have a creature called the "tiyanak" for example which is like a carnivorous changeling (baby) that preys on unsuspecting humans.

HM: What are the tropes you encounter in Philippine fiction, which are foreign to Western tradition? What is done differently?

CT: There's the use of our folklore, which is unique. And then there's the inclusion of Americans in stories, which tends to be one of two extremes: either they're saviors or they're villains. Justified, considering our colonial experience.

HM: You are an incredibly busy man, contributing to sites such as the SF Signal, World SF News Blog and Nebula Awards Blog [just to name a few]. How do you manage the whole juggling act?

CT: Eventually, I don't. Some sites I've had to drop over the years, and content that would otherwise appear on my blog has migrated elsewhere. The key however is to actually dedicate time to these sites. You can say you'll dedicate the first 2 hours of your day to these websites and stick to that commitment.

HM: How do you deal with the burn out?

CT: I'm the persevering kind of guy so for me, I just keep at it. I have phases where I'm unproductive (whether it's due to work, an unforeseen medical problem, or simply something else has taken my fancy) but if I keep doing what I do, things eventually turn around. And genre is always exciting!

HM: All these sites are high profile and reputable, so I cannot help but attribute a certain level of divine inaccessibility. How does one become involved with the big players?

CT: Honestly, it's easy to "start" any endeavor, such as producing a blog. What's difficult is maintaining it and keeping it chugging along over the years. Some good book bloggers usually call it quits at the end of a year or two. I certainly wasn't an overnight sensation, and my seemingly-prevalent (I honestly don't think I'm prevalent) status is the result of years of obscurity.

The second factor is to simply volunteer your services. You can't expect other people to always find you. Sometimes, you have to take the first step. SFWA for example is always looking for volunteers. I volunteered (perhaps foolishly :p) for the Nebula Awards Blog. And for SF Signal, it's contacting them and asking them hey, how can I help out you guys?

My mentality, whether it's with my readers or other people, isn't how they can help me, but how can I help them? The rest will follow, but it also takes time.

HM: What about the ‘I am not good enough’ barrier, where the individual think that he/she is not good enough to even be considered, so they do not submit. Have you had such phases? I admit that I have had some initial moments, but I am overcoming them. My biggest issue at the moment is the time deficiency and over-commitment.

CT: I'm practical. I don't have the "I am not good enough barrier". The worst thing an editor/publisher/market can do is reject your story (not you). That's it. Don't make the decision for them. It's up to them to accept or reject your story. It's up to you to send it. If I have problems, it's finding the time and over-commitment to write.

There are obviously times when I think my writing is not good enough, and so revision might take more time than expected. I also do think some writers are better than me. That's reality. But I honestly can't spend the time thinking "I'm not good enough for this market". That's up to them to decide, not me. It's useless thinking that way and all you're doing is closing a potential market. The problem with this line of thinking is that it'll never get better. When have you thought "you know what, I'm now good enough for this market"? The better you get at writing fiction, the more you become aware of your weaknesses and limitations.

HM: Your link-up feature is beyond top notch. I use it as a second go-to after I manage to go through my Google Reader. What’s your system to maintaining such a demanding feature and always be well informed? Do you, by any chance, have an army of informants?

CT: Well, it starts out with simply having an extensive RSS Reader such as Google Reader. Livejournal also doubles as that. And then there are news/content sites which I regularly visit, such as Tor.com, Suvudu.com, and SF Signal.

People also do help out and email me. Paul di Filippo for example regularly sends me news tidbits which he also sends to other genre news sites, such as Locus. There are a lot of industry people (authors, editors, bloggers, etc.) there who have projects/interviews they want to plug so they also email me any relevant piece that they might have (publicists are your best friends). But most of my content comes from casual browsing of my RSS Feeds, Livejournal friends list, and Twitter (and that's the case because I'm deeply interested in genre, as opposed to simply being a casual fan with a few contacts).

[Reviewer Time] Paul C. Smith from Empty Your Heart of Its Mortal Dream

Blog: Empty Your Heart of Its Mortal Dream [oh-so-vague, but oh-so-beautiful]
Founder: Paul C Smith
First Post: February 18th 2010 [You can still catch a whiff of that new-blog-smell; FYI it smells like ozone.]
Average Number of Posts per Month: 17 [based on 2010 so far; up until September]

Genres: Paul loves books and can rarely be found without one on him somewhere. He has eclectic tastes and reads in a wide range of areas from mainstream literature to genre, poetry, dramatics, philosophy, and non-fiction.

From the Dude Himself: Born and raised in the Northwest of England, encouraged from an early age to read by his mother, Paul spent many a Saturday afternoon in the local town library while she was shopping. He carried this love of reading with him through school to university where he studied in philosophy. Choosing to continue his studies, he is now doing a part time postgraduate degree in philosophy on the narrative as a model for ethics that will be completed next year, while working full time at the dreaded day job. As none of his friends are really that interested in books, after reading Jeff VanderMeer’s Booklife, he decided to start a blog in order to talk about the books that he likes.

Highlights: Everything… [Bastard; bringing quality material with every post. I need a hit man]

Why do I bother?: Oh you know, keep friends close, but keep enemies closer. I prefer to have them strapped down to chairs in my basement, but first you gotta be friendly. Creepy serial killer notions aside, Paul is erudite and his reviews target books that are never on my radar, since I don’t know of their existence. He strikes me as ultra-sophisticated [just read the interview] and ultra-friendly on Twitter.

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Harry Markov: Hello, Paul. Thank you for accepting my invitation. Pleasure to have you here. As part of the hallowed traditions of this feature, let’s start with a bit about you. Who is Paul C Smith?

Paul Smith: My first inclination upon reading this question was to compare the various notions about the self from Plato and Aristotle through Descartes and Hume and the criticism raised on ideas of the self by Nietzsche, so I suppose Paul C Smith is a student of philosophy. He is also an avid reader of all sorts of books, fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama, a part time amateur critic, and a novice at the noble art of writing prose. He also seems to enjoy talking about himself in the third person a little too much.

HM: What lured you into literature? Of course, I also include the genres you read in.

PS: My mother instilled the important of reading into me at a young age, and most of my Saturday afternoons were spent in the library while she was shopping in town, so I suppose I have her to thank for it. As a child, I read of lot of fantasy, so I suspect that is why it has stayed with me into adulthood. I just seemed to have stumbled into other genres, through my interest in philosophy, recommendations from friends or writers I admire, et cetera and realized that I enjoy all different sorts of books.

HM: Something, which is feverishly encouraged. But what are the benefits from reading and venturing outside our comfort zones?

PS: There are so many great books out there; I just cannot see the point of limiting yourself to certain genres. It just seems to me like you are cutting yourself off from the potential of great books based on assumptions that may not be true. There are also education benefits, in the general sense and the writing sense. Michael Moorcock has always said that if you want to be a writer, then you should read a lot of books outside of the kind that you want to write, and I agree.

HM: You are one of the many review blogs [I sense overpopulation], but even though we are many and our content overlaps, everyone has a distinct reason to start blogging and a story tied to their blog. What is your origin story?

PS: It is not anything particularly interesting. Like many other people who maintain blogs I would like to be a writer one day. I started it as a way to meet people and network with others, as suggested in Jeff VanderMeer’s wonderful book on managing and publicizing your work, Booklife. It seemed like a natural fit, as I am a pretty opinionated person who loves to read and often has a lot to say.

HM: Aha, so I have discovered another writer amidst our reviewing ilk. What is the type of stories you want to write and have you started your debut?

PS: I don’t really like to put a label on it as I prefer to say that I write fiction, but I suppose in terms of influences there’s the symbolists and the decadents, weird tales, dark fantasy, philosophical horror, existentialism and New Weird. I’m not interested in longer forms at the moment, so I have mostly been working on short stories.

HM: I am usually past the point, where I ask bloggers about their blogs’ title, but “Empty Your Heart of Its Mortal Dream” has a bewitching quality, which makes me want to know what this phrase means to you and why you chose it.

PS: It is a wonderful line isn’t it? It is taken from one of my favourite poems by W.B. Yeats, (arguably the most important poet of the twentieth century), called The Hosting of the Sidhe. As the host passes by lead by Caoilte and Niahm, who becomes for Yeats a sort of figure similar to Viviane in the work of Tennyson as a seductress to mortals. In the poem, the line represents this idea of leaving your mortal life and all its worries behind to join the fey folk. I chose it for the site because I think it embodies this idea that we have all become a little too cynical and hard hearted and we could all do to open ourselves up to something more otherworldly and wondrous.

HM: I can understand this in two ways. Opening to the wondrous by reading speculative fiction or by reading only for pleasure without trying to dissect a novel for its meaning? Of course this can be much more innocent as in simply being more positive.

PS: Mostly the former, as I don’t see a distinction between reading for pleasure and looking for meaning, although I do admit I am the kind of person who finds books that aren’t trying to say something quite unfulfilling.

HM: You are the non-conformist from us [sorry to label], always reaching for the odd, unknown titles. Do you not fancy the mainstream SFF or do you consciously present the books that do not see much limelight?

PS: A think it is a little bit of both. Mainstream science fiction and fantasy for the most part doesn’t interest means it tends to consist of epic fantasy and space opera, but I did make a conscious choice to try and showcase the work of lesser-known non-mainstream authors. There are a number of good reasons why I chose to do this, but the ones that are probably the most compelling are that there is less of this kind of content online which makes the blog a bit more unique, and I think those authors benefit more from the coverage than those who are already big names.

HM: Who tops the list of the underappreciated and why should he/she be read?

PS: Michael Cisco. I wrote a whole essay on the subject, but to put it succinctly he is an amazing stylist, his prose his beautiful and his work is thoroughly original. His novel, The Traitor, is one of the best of the last decade.

HM: You also post a weekly character expose, where you shed light on characters you love and explain why people should read about them. How did this idea form? What prompted you to start?

PS: There is not an exciting story behind it I’m afraid, I was just trying to think of what to post on a Sunday afternoon, and that is what I came up with. I had not really seen many articles that focus mostly on doing a study of a character rather than the books he or she had been in, so it seemed like a good idea at the time, and people seem to like it. It has been on hiatus for a while as I have been quite busy with other things, but it may make a return sometime in the future.

HM: To jump back at the unusual titles [older books and such] you review, I assume you do not keep close ties with the publicists. Have you not been tempted to jump on the ARC/review copy train?

PS: I don’t have any ties with publicists at all and I don’t have any real plans to forge any. I enjoy the freedom that not having to do any advance reviews gives me, and I wouldn’t know what to do if boxes of random books started showing up on the doorstep every fortnight. A lot of people are doing the ARC and doing a good job, but it just isn’t for me. I like the fact that the only obligations I have are to myself, and if I had a pile of books I felt obligated to review it would start to feel more like a job. That isn’t to say I wouldn’t like to get the odd advance copy of something by an author I like, but for me it just isn’t worth everything else that comes with it.

HM: There have been discussions that reviewers tend to be influenced by publishers and publicists with new releases and that review copies shape their reading. Now I am not going into absolute statements or hyperboles, but going for the average. What’s your take on the matter?

PS: It is a very difficult question because essentially it pertains to people’s intentions, which are always difficult to gauge. I would like to think the aim of any reviewer is to be both impartial and honest, but it would be very naive to believe that there aren’t some people more interested in getting free books. I think there is a bit of a dichotomy between those who only review new releases and those who also review older books, as was seen by the discussions not so long ago regarding the question of whether older books are being forgotten. That being said, I do think there are enough blogs currently doing both so I don’t think it is a major problem just yet. Personally, I do feel those limiting themselves to only new releases are doing themselves a disservice though.

HM: Should reviewers know their genre history prior to tackling the reviewer gig? Yes, the web gives us all voice, but who equips it to the best is what I want to know.

PS: I definitely think it is helpful, if only to know when something is original and something is a cliché. It helps to be able to place something within a context, but I do not think a detailed knowledge of genre history is essential. It is helpful though and as readers it is something that we usually build up over time anyway if we avoid reading only new releases.

HM: You are a long review writer in an era in which people want bite size information. There is no time to read long reviews. Does this mean that the long review no longer has a place on the Internet?

PS: I do not really believe that, and to be honest I find capsule reviews to be ineffectual even when done well. If a novel is good then it is impossible to describe the reasons why adequately in one paragraph. I often find myself wondering when reading reviews why points made are not fully realized or supported with evidence. I think the main quantifier is the same now as it has always been, and that is quality. If you write a long form article that is intelligent and insightful then there will always be people who want to read it, I have certainly found that that is the case in my own experience. If anything, I think the Internet needs more long reviews and book discussions.

HM: What do you think of reviews done in parts as a distant relative of the long review?

PS: I think they are fine as long as they are well structured, by which I mean each part discusses a specific point or points within the novel so that the part review can stand alone. Otherwise, if it just discusses what happens in a few chapters and then ends abruptly, it would feel a bit disjointed. I think it is also a good idea to try and ensure that there isn’t too much of a gap between the posts either, so that the onus isn’t on the reader to have to try and remember something posted a while before.

HM: Also when is longer a bit too long? How much can a reviewer write about a novel before it becomes pointless?

PS: I am probably the wrong person to ask this question because I wrote five thousand words about John Gardner’s Grendel recently and could have easily written more, but I don’t think it is so much a length issue as it is a content one. Too long for me isn’t related to a word count, it is when the author starts to repeat himself. As long as you have valid and salient points to make, I think you are fine writing as much as you like.

HM: What is your approach to writing reviews?

PS: I believe that the essential quality of the act of reading is a dialogue with the text; therefore every good review involves a form of argument. For me, I tend to think like a philosopher and reviewing a book consists of discerning the book’s main hypothesis, what it is trying to convey, and then evaluating how well the point is made through the use of characters, pace, stylistics, et cetera. The important thing is the central idea, and the other elements are the hook. The effectiveness of the book at convincing me of its hypothesis is the measure of how good the book is overall. The best stories are the ones that speak to us on a very human level through the ideas that they convey regardless of genres, whether it is William Faulkner or Zoran Zivkovic.

HM: And have you read a novel, which accomplishes this task, but which doesn’t appeal to your taste at all for different reasons?

PS: James Joyce is an author who I both appreciate and admit the fact that he is a great writer, but he just doesn’t do anything for me. Personal taste does play a part, but as reviewers we have to strive to differentiate between fact and opinion. All reviews are subjective to an extent, but there are certainly objective facts to be made about good writing, whether we like it or not.

HM: What makes a good review?

PS: Engagement with the text. I read a lot of reviews in which the reviewer tends to skirt around the edges, they tell us what happens, and what they like about the novel, but they don’t really tell us anything about the book. John Clute has said how sometimes it is necessary to pummel a work with your own firsts to make a Golem of it and I’d like to see more reviewers doing that. Be brave, interpret the text and tell us what you think the author is doing even if in doing so you misunderstand or misinterpret them. In the afterword to The Third Bear, Jeff VanderMeer talks about how when all is said and done there are only interpretations; that is what we need, more interpretations. I think most authors would appreciate that, even if you got it wrong.

HM: Thank you for your time and your most insightful answers. Are there any last words you would like to share with us?

PS: Thank you for having me. Last words? I’m not dying, am I? I hope it isn’t syphilis; all the men I admire seem to catch it. Manet, Gaugain, Baudelaire, Heine, Nietzsche… I think I shall leave it at that.

[Interview] David Moore from Abaddon/Solaris

Who: David Moore

Bio: David Thomas Moore emigrated from Australia in 1994, and has lived, worked and studied in the UK ever since. A life-long devotee of fantasy, science-fiction and horror and sporadically published in online magazines and fanzines, he is very excited to be working as an editor on the Abaddon Books imprint. He is a dedicated role-player and board-gamer, is married and lives in Reading. There is no truth to the rumour that he is an Australian Special Forces forward agent, sent to infiltrate your media prior to a full-scale invasion.

Work: He is with Abaddon Books & Solaris Books, bringing you awesome books each month.

Why: Because I love industry people.

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Hello, David. Thank you for accepting my interview invitation and welcome to the halls of Temple Library Reviews. I am most honored to have you here. How are you doing?

Very polite of you! It’s an honour to be here.

And fine and fit, thank you, Harry. I’ve just enjoyed a very lazy weekend in the sun. I hope you’re well?

You are an editor over at Solaris and Abaddon as well. As a matter of fact, the whole team is stretched between the two imprints. How did it come to this dual work arrangement?

Necessity’s the mother of invention, I suppose. Jon Oliver ran the Abaddon imprint solo for four years, and was pretty stretched for a lot of the time. Then our esteemed fellows over at BL Publishing put the Solaris imprint on the market and Rebellion decided to invest in it. It was obvious Jon would need extra hands, so Rebellion set about recruiting a desk editor to take on Abaddon while Jon focused on Solaris, which brings me into the picture.

No plan survives contact with the enemy, of course. The “Jon = Solaris/David = Abaddon” notion survived for exactly zero minutes. When I started, every Abaddon project was partway through and there was a pile of Solaris projects ready to kick off, so I was put on Andy Remic’s Hardcore right away. Jenni Hill was taken on to e-book the back catalogue and was so consistently brilliant she was kept on as junior editor, and she was put on the Solaris backlog too. And as Editor-in-Chief, Jon’s the commissioning editor for both imprints, so sometimes it’s just Jenni and me doing the grunt work for both imprints while he sifts through submissions.

Since then, we’ve all three of us jumped between the two imprints as needs dictated.

What are your primary functions at Solaris/Abaddon as an editor?

It’s a mixed bag, really. Every manuscript – once Jon’s signed off on it – needs an initial readthrough to look for glaring issues (“but why does she save his life in Chapter 1 if the twist at the end is she was trying to kill him all along?”), which we’ll usually just bounce straight back to the author to fix. Jon does a lot of these as part of the commissioning process, but sometimes, for the second or third book in a series, we’ll grab that one.

The second step is a copy-edit. This is the real grind of the editorial process: red pen in hand, nose pressed to the manuscript, picking up on style, continuity, voice and tone, and as many of the spelling and grammar errors as we can. Then the manuscript goes back to the author to agree or reject the changes – and we have a bit of an argument if they’ve rejected too many changes – and we put it into proofs.

Then the third step is the proof-read, when we go through with a fine-tooth comb and purely look for spelling, grammar and punctuation; try and make sure the book that hits the shelves is perfect. Of course, perfection is a lofty ideal, but the less chance there is of you noticing an error, the better we feel. All in all, we prefer it if no one member of the team does all three jobs for the same book – you get proper brain-fatigue, and are more likely to skip over errors – so maybe Jon will read through one book, Jenni will edit it and I’ll proof it, and next time maybe Jenni will read it, I’ll edit it and Jon will proof.

Then there’s the odd, fun stuff. Jenni and I have taken the Twitter and blog accounts on and try to keep them full of stuff to look at; I’m learning a lot about desk-top publishing, to take some of the pressure of the designers; our new Abaddon series, Malory’s Knights of Albion, was my baby, so I got to write the world-bible for that and I’m part of the commissioning process; I went with Jon to the SFX Weekender in February to represent the two imprints to the fan world; I even went to a photoshoot on a stud farm to take pictures of an armoured knight for the Malory covers. It’s never a boring job.

How did you become an editor and was the road a perilous quest, much similar to an epic fantasy adventure?

Ah, well. Raised as I was by simple pig-herders in the rural Black Forest, I first realized my destiny when a wise old man came to the village and told me I was, in truth, the son of an editor. He sent me on a quest to the utter east, to Stationery Mountain, to wrest the Red Pen from the Lord of Proofs. On the way I was to pick up a motley collection of travelling companions…

Ehm.

I actually worked in technology for ten years out of university, before coming to the realization that a) it wasn’t my bag, and b) what the heck did I do an English degree for? I hit up all my friends (bit of a tip for your readers: always hit your personal network; you’d be surprised who the people you know, know), and turned up a sniff of an opportunity at Rebellion. My CV went in with one hundred and forty-three others, and I had the good fortune to be selected for interview. Then it turned out I live on the road Jon used to live on and that we had friends in common, which was cool.

This had nothing to do with him giving me the job; I used powerful sedatives and suggestive conditioning for that.

You know, it seems pretty often that people recognize their vocation later in life and it takes years before they start working where they want. I think it’s because there is a notion that a job you enjoy is not a well paying job and it seems only too good to be true. The whole publishing industry is based on trickling profit, both for authors, editors and agents alike.

Partly it’s the money, sure. Graduates especially come out of university with a fat debt and a need for instant cash-flow, and the lure of an uninspiring corporate job with a respectable pay-packet is hard to ignore. I think you mostly manage by separating your working life from your (sadly unpaid) passions. But the other factor – and, of course, part of why dream jobs are so low-paying in the first place – is that competition for dream jobs is immense. They’re other people’s dreams as well… I really landed on my feet here at Rebellion, and even so, I had to beat a hundred and forty other guys for a five-grand pay-cut. Yay, me.

It takes a lot of guts to make a jump like that, all the more so later in life when you have families and mortgages.

Also, what do you find irresistible with speculative fiction that you decided to work in the field. What do these genres give you that others simply can’t?

I have always loved SF and fantasy. My earliest memories of reading are in genre fic. I’d probably have seized on any opportunity to work in publishing, but getting a job in a genre publisher was like ten Christmases all at once.

Reading and writing are exercises of the imagination; flights of fancy. Telling a story in exotic times and places, where the rules of the world are unfamiliar and need to be explored, both fires the imagination more and gives more opportunities to the author. It gives you a bigger palette, demands more of your vision. I love being part of that.

What role does the Bachelor in English play out, while job hunting? I imagine it is mandatory to have, but the question is whether the name of the university plays a role or if there is an evaluation, beforehand?

I suspect a publishing recruiter could answer that better than a publishing recruitee! Having an English degree is important – it shows, if nothing else, that you’re passionate enough about literature to dedicate three years of your life and accumulate a considerable debt to get a qualification with no obvious career progression associated with it – but where you went isn’t particularly germane. It’s certainly not as important as your experience (professional or otherwise), enthusiasm and presentation.

Couple of things to keep in mind when trying to impress prospective employers. Firstly, you’re applying for a job working with written documents, and you get to send two documents right away: your CV and covering letter. Make both as interesting, professional, well laid-out and perfect as you can. It’s essentially your first impression. Second, if you’re looking for your first job and damning the fact that all employers seem to want prior experience, realise that you probably have loads of experience, just not professional. Proofing and editing for friends, things you’ve written for your church group or hobby, letters you’ve checked for your boss. Find a way to draw attention to them.

By evaluation, do you mean a test? I didn’t have one, but they’re common. You get a short passage of text and are asked to proof-read or copy-edit it on the spot. The only trick here, unfortunately, is to know your stuff. If you have the time and can afford the modest fee, a correspondence course in either or both is an excellent investment. If not, googling “proofing marks” is a good start. Read through a good grammar reference, buy a popular style guide, and get to know what you’re looking for.

Since you started working as an editor, what is the revelation you discovered about fiction that you couldn’t possibly ever experience, if you weren’t an editor?

(laughs) Writers have very different ideas what constitutes “a first draft.”

We have some authors who obsessively edit and proof themselves, and send in works so clean they could almost go to press that day. We check them anyway, to be sure we’re happy with pace and to pick up the inevitable errors that sneak through, but these guys are a delight to work with.

Then we have authors who obviously think that, since we’re just going to go through it anyway, there’s no point them going through it as well, and send in a manuscript the second they’ve done typing “The End.” And you can really tell. Not that I particularly grieve about it, but there are authors you know in advance are going to need longer to turn around.

Orbit Books announced that they would launch a new service that provides short fiction by their authors. I am intrigued to see what other people from the industry think about this.

I’m really excited about it.

I grew up with science fiction – in the early ’eighties I’d scour my dad’s book collection, dredging out Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein – and my favourites were the collections of shorts. I spent about eight months reading every single one of Asimov’s short stories from the ’forties (aside from the handful that are forever lost), which took some doing. The ’eighties themselves were a great time for anthologists. I found all sorts of odd collections of short stories; I remember reading one called the Science-Fiction Olympics, which was all about sport-themed SF stories. It was a joy that I’d more or less forgotten until last year, when my wife bought me Gaiman’s Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things, which I loved.

There’s a lot of talk about the economics of the short – especially with Orbit’s new digital short idea, which should open the industry up to taking a risk on less-well known authors more readily – but the short story format has a lot to say for itself anyway. Shorts are tighter, and sharper. You have to say everything you’d normally say, in a fraction of the space. They’re a better environment for comic SF writing, and for surprises and twists. And there’s a real “box of chocolates” joy to a collection of stories. Some are duff and some are brilliant, but you can never really resent the few pennies a short cost you, or the half hour or so you spent reading it, so you get the thrill of dipping in and seeing what you’ve got and never feel really disappointed, even if you do come across a lemon.

So, yeah. Really looking forward to it.

I can see this as a motivation to boost the interest into short fiction, which is certainly less popular than novel-length works. Do you agree?

With some reservations, sure.

For one thing, I’m not sure if short fiction’s as unpopular with readers as it is with publishers. In publishing, a lot of the selling power of your book is in the author’s name. Even when you’re publishing a new author, you regard it as an investment in a future bankable name. With an anthology, unless it’s all by the same author, you get twenty names all disappearing into the contents page, never to be seen again. Maybe you can bank on the anthologist – that’s why there were so many anthologies in the eighties with Asimov’s or Bradbury’s name slapped all over the front – but on the whole you have to hope the book sells on its own merits, where most books sell on the merit of the last one by that author. (You do it anyway, because you love the form, and you want to give authors the exposure, but the money guys are at your elbow asking you not to do too many.) It’s the same from a writer’s point of view. A short is about 5% as many words as a novel, but you get paid less than 5% as much as you get paid for a novel (given that you share the royalties with the anthologist as well as the other authors), and it definitely takes more than 5% as much time and labour as a novel. It’s fun, and most authors do it for exposure or the love of the thing, but it’s not something you want to do for a living.

The readers, I suspect – if my experience as a teenage geek was anything to go by – love short fiction. We’re too often asked to invest in a 900 page book (and then the next thirteen 900 page books in the series!); and a story that can draw you in, unfold and pay off in a tightly-disciplined five thousand words is pretty appealing. But you buy what’s on the shelves.

Magazines provided the perfect outlet for this, once. The short stories I loved so much in my youth got their first airing decades before in the pages of Amazing Stories and Astounding SF, long before they were packaged as collections. But the nature of the market changed, and it’s a lot harder to sell that kind of magazine for a reasonable price, pay authors competitively, and make a profit.

The digital age takes away a lot of the problems. You’re not paying for print or distribution, so the margins are a lot simpler. What the reader pays is more or less split between the author and the publisher, and while publishers are still a couple of years away from this really being profitable, you’re taking much less of a risk when you publish an unknown. Which means more risks, more stories, more authors and a much bigger box of chocolates.

It should be cool.

Speaking of anthologies, I would like to know how author collections fare in the market. Do publishers invest in such projects [with new names I mean, excluding Gaiman etc.] and is it likely to sign a brand new name with a collection first, a novel later. Or at the same time.

I don’t know the numbers, to be honest. I understand it depends very much on the author; a known “thinking person’s” author will tend to sell collections, because the fans enjoy the sort of neat little idea-bite that a short story enables; big-selling authors also sell collections, because fans are interested in seeing what they do with a different format. Having said that publishers can bank on big names on author collections – this is still true – we actually tend to prefer anthologies of different authors. It’s a more interesting artistic process for us, and the (admittedly small number of) regular anthology buyers tend to be in it specifically for the mix of talent. We’d hit a wider market with an author collection by a big name, but if we’ve got a big name, we might as well commission a novel.

No, we won’t tend to take a new author on with a collection first of all. You may get a crack at contributing to an anthology, or we may (if you’ve been very good) ask you to write a novel. An author collection is definitely something to base on an existing reputation.

Social media is booming. Twitter has given us voices to shout out on the second, while blogs have set up a platform for our opinions. The word of mouth model of marketing has picked up incredible speed and that certainly has influenced the publishing world. I’d like it, if we can start a conversation on this topic.

Okay. I think we can start with a flat (and unflattering) assertion: advertising blows.

I feel kind of hollow pimping the fruit of my fertile mind, when really I want it to succeed based on its self-evident awesomeness. I know how much it annoys me, when I keep stumbling across marketing shenanigans (no more than ten or twenty thousand times a day), and I sort of hate that I’m contributing unwanted advertising to other people’s lives. I’m better than that; what we create here in Abaddon and Solaris stands on its own.

At the same time, of course, I appreciate that what we make blends invisibly into a market of, I recently read, one hundred and fifty thousand books published every year in this country, most of them fiction. We have to pimp it, or no-one will read it, and really, I’m doing the artistic world a favour, because even if I have to resort to cheap, low-brow tactics to sell my excellent book, at least I know at the end of it you’re reading an excellent book! Hell, I’m helping!

How is this relevant to your question?

Well, how awesome is a mode of advertising that a) you’re only going to see if you’re interested (if you’ve followed or friended me or what-have-you), and b) you pass on for me? It’s so good! I love this stuff.

And there’s an immediacy, and a sincerity, to so much of it. Finding out about our latest book in a glossy full-page ad in a science-fiction magazine is cool; finding out in a review of one of our books is better; but finding out from the actual author’s personal blog, who’s talking about the experiences he went through writing it, and reading his banter with his editor on Twitter? That’s priceless. Which, I think, is why it catches the attention more than ads. It doesn’t feel like you’re hearing from a PR guy; you’re hearing from the people who are involved in, and care about, what they want you to buy into.

I can understand where this is coming from. It’s incompatible how art and business have to coalesce for the better of the author, the reader and the publisher. In order for the author to succeed and share his vision and touch his audience [I imagine that agents, editors and publicists all want that too.] he has to sell and in order to sell he has to market. There’s a great pressure on the authors these days to have their platforms.

Got it in one! Booksellers, publishers, editors and writers all want the same thing (to release a beautiful book that we’re all proud of) and we all need the same thing (to sell lots of books). You sometimes hear the cliché about writers and editors being at loggerheads – the big, bad editor that wants to ruin my life’s work – but most authors are really good about the obnoxious stuff we put them all through, because they understand we’re all in the same boat.

So we have to look at things from a marketing perspective. There are a lot of tricks – and I’m not going to tell you all of them; there are such things as industry secrets, after all – but the big thing is getting out there. Signings, conventions, advertising, interviews. It all mounts up. Stuff that makes us, and the writers, directly available to the readers is great. It’s more honest, more compelling, and – bluntly – more fun.

Of course the authors alone cannot influence the sales figures. Publishing houses and imprints do a hefty deal of the work, as far as I hear. However, is there a difference to what sort of marketing campaigns publishers can provide for their titles?

Ooh. There’s a bunch of stuff, and it depends on a lot of factors. A lot of it is in how much you’re willing to spend, which in turn depends on how much you’re likely to make, which in turn is affected by how well you market. It can be a bit of a vicious circle, and a lot of guess-work as to the potential sales is involved. Advertising, of course. Promotions through the retailers. Sending review copies to opinion-makers.

I have also read from editors’ personal blogs that the publishing model demands more or less for the publisher to emphasize on a single book as far as marketing goes [as the case was with Left Hand of God] to ensure at least one bestseller.

Well, you have to judge each book on its potential. If you have a big name, a lot of hype, it’s the second or third book in a successful series – the kind of stuff that’ll draw people to buy it – then it’s worth your while spending money on promoting it even more. If you don’t think it’ll sell as well, you promote it as much as you can as cheaply as you can, but you just can’t afford to spend a lot of money on pushing it and stay in business.

This is another place where social networking comes in. It’s free! We can push books we have a lot of faith in artistically, even if we know they’re less likely to be a hit, because the money guys don’t have a say in whether we do it or not.

I am not sure whether you accept unsolicited submissions over at Solaris/Abaddon, but if you have, have you ever encountered some startling and hilarious queries and what is the query you would want to see, in order to consider even reading a book?

Erk. Tricky one to answer without potentially offending our submitters.

We have had a submission from someone who wants to write a book about a popular singer’s genitals departing their host and embarking on a solo career. That was… odd.

The notorious answer from pretty much all publishers is “we don’t accept unsolicited submissions.” The way to do it is to get an agent, and get him or her to contact us. But, you know, if you know someone who knows someone, or can corner someone at a convention, you may as well mention it; we might be in a good mood. Especially if you buy a pint at the same time as mentioning it.

But assuming you’ve sorted out an agent, or cornered me at a con, then I’d say surprise me. Mix genres or conventions, add tones and styles. How about a cyberpunk book told from the point of view of the guys at the dizzy heights of the corporate chain rather than from the streets? How about a heroic fantasy set in colonial-era America? How about a vampire book where the vampire’s an actual goddamn bad guy? Catch me out and make me think, and I’ll read your proposal.

It is decided then, I will take you to the pub. I will be at FantasyCon this year. *hint, hint* But from what you just said it seems that you like something outside the ordinary genre canons. Crossed Genre is really picking up speed, isn’t it?

I’m doing all I can to get there. I look forward to the sweet, sweet taste of bribery beer.

Erm… I can sense another one of those “yes and no” answers sneaking up on me right now. As a reader, I love things that are original and startling, and that crosses genres; as an editor, it’s the kind of thing I dream of landing on my desk. As a publisher, we’d much prefer to see safe, easily categorised books that we can market to an existing buying public and move fifty thousand units. To an extent, then, we have to try and subvert the industry. An old standby is to commission something new and exciting, then package it like something old and reliable to trick people into buying it, confident in the knowledge that they’ll be blown away and want more of the same.

Of course, that bears fruit, which promotes imitators, and new genres are born. This where things like steampunk and cyberpunk come from.

(Why is it always “-punk”? We’ve brought out two military SF/men-versus-the-gods books; is this “godpunk”?)

But yeah, I think people are getting more adventurous. You still need to be cautious with the distributors and marketers – they don’t like stepping too far out of their safety zones – but it seems to me that readers are interested in being challenged, and new worlds to follow adventure in are coming to light all the time.

To retrace back to the submission stages, I know that you do not sign the new manuscripts and such, but what role does the hook have for you in a novel? Rookies are supposed to snare you immediately so they need a huge hook. Popular authors may not need them so much, since they have established a following. But I’d like another person from inside the industry to have a say on this matter.

Everyone needs a hook. Whether you’re a new author or an established author, whether you’re pitching to an agent, to a publisher, or to the buying public. It’s utterly vital at all times, for two reasons.

The first is because we’re all lazy. Or busy. Or busy and lazy. When I pick up a book as a reader, or an MS as an editor, I want to know before I even start reading, “Is this any good? Am I gonna want to read this?” And until I work out all the bugs in my patented BookTasteOMatic 2000™, all I have to go on is the hook. Commissioning editors are the same; they’ll receive a hundred proposals and have the time to read maybe ten for every one they commission, so the hooks are a good way of selecting which ones to weed out.

The second is it keeps you focused. A story needs to capture and hold the imagination; it needs a strong narrative and a clear theme. Basically, if you can’t sum it up in twenty words, then you probably don’t have a clear enough idea of what you want to write, and that will show when people go to read it.

Are you a novelist by any chance?

Would you believe “aspiring”? I’ve been published a little in short-form and in articles. I am, like most people who work in publishing, planning a novel right now. And no, I’m not gonna tell you what it’s about.

Feel free to conclude this interview in your own words.

Well, this seems to have become more of an “aspiring writer’s questions answered” interview than I expected, so I guess I’ll tell any aspiring writer reading this good luck, and godspeed. Remember to write every day, to trust almost everyone else’s opinions of your book more than your own, and not to give up the dream.

And thank you, Harry. You’ve been a gracious host, and this has been a fun interview. I look forward to coming back.

[Interview] J. Robert King -- Angel of Death

Who: J. Robert King

Bio: J. Robert King is the award-winning author of over twenty novels, most recently The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls and the Mad Merlin trilogy. Fifteen years ago, Rob founded the Alliterates, a cabal of writers in the Midwest and West Coast of the U.S. Rob also often takes to the stage, starring in local productions such as The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) and Arsenic and Old Lace. He lives in Wisconsin with his lovely wife, three brilliant sons, and three less-than brilliant cats.

J. Robert King’s novels have exceeded his fingers and toes, which is reason to stop counting them. The novels—not the fingers and toes. When he got down to seventeen, he realized he should keep better track.

J. Robert King has always wanted to be either a novelist or an artist. He decided to become a novelist because he could buy a ream of paper for five bucks but couldn’t buy even a tube of paint for that much. At the time, he didn’t realize that artists get to work with naked models.

Works: Angel of Death, Mad Merlin Trilogy, Shadow of Reichenbach Falls

Why: Part of my undying Angry Robot Love Fest & because J. Robert King is a brilliant author I wanted to learn more about.

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HM: Mister King, it is a pleasure to have you sitting in my cozy virtual chair here at Temple Library Reviews. Thank you for accepting my invitation, because I am in awe with ‘Angel of Death’. What triggered the lifelong addiction to sit in front of a screen and type pending LCD-induced hallucination?

JRK: Ah, Mister Markov, the pleasure is all mine.

I think you are onto something with the LCD addiction. First, I loved books. Fair enough. But then I got a paper cut, so I switched to ebooks. And then I thought, “I'm already reading a book on a computer. I might as well write a book there.” And then I published a book and got tweets from tweeps and found myself surrounded by efriends.

It's not that they aren't real friends. If I cut them, they will still bleed. But I can't cut them because they are sitting four thousand miles away at a seventy-three degree angle. I know, you're thinking—just get a sword that is four thousand miles and one foot long and cut them anyway. I thought of that, but you're forgetting about the curvature of the Earth. So that's the obsession that has led me to write books and have efriends—safety from cuts.

Also, of course, it's the cost savings. To read a book costs between $8 and $30, but to write a book costs nothing. So I write books. It's a way to scrimp. And if I say to a friend, “Hey, let me take you to a movie,” I could end up paying between $10 and $50 depending on the amount of popcorn. But for an efriend, I can say, “Hey, look at this movie: http://ow.ly/1nBRc,” and I have taken that friend to a movie for no price at all. I've taken thousands of efriends out to the emovies and they must buy their own epopcorn.

Yes, I am very much like the Angel of Death in that we both are cheap bastards.

HM: Is your name really King or have you cleverly [and dastardly] taken upon this penname to lure unsuspecting readers to your books?

JRK: My name really is King.

It was confusing when I was young, because teachers would call the roll in the morning and come to my name and shout “King, John?” Of course, King John was the usurping idiot who was always pantsed by Robin Hood, so I was too embarrassed to say, “Here.” I tried to make up a cover story, such as, “He's off at the crusades.” The teacher then would glower at me and say, “Does he have a note?” I would reply coolly, “The Saracens gave him one, but it was all scribbles.”

The name King was also confusing because the neighbors had an old, arthritic dog named King. He would come over and stand in our gravel driveway and shudder. I would glance dubiously at my father, who had given me the name King, and ask if I could be something else—you know, Prince, Duke, Viscount, Exchequer—but he insisted on King. I said, “That's the name of that stupid old arthritic dog!” But my dad said, “Son, there was a time when the name King meant something. The king was the lord of the land. His rule was strong but gentle, and everyone loved him. But then he got fat and had a heart attack sitting on the toilet.” It was a sobering moment. Then I said, “Dad, can I be Presley?”

HM: Good one. On the more serious side, from ‘Angel of Death’ I see you have an interest in gore and some seriously fucked up deviations [I am pro-deviations]. Where did that interest stem from and who was your strongest influence?

JRK: On the more serious side, or perhaps the darker side, yes, I do have a fixation and fascination with some seriously fucked-up deviations. (Thank you for not calling me a 'deviant.' I'd've had to get out my four-thousand-mile-and-one-foot-long sword.)

The scary fact of the matter is that Tolkien and Lewis were my inspirations. They made these beautiful worlds because they felt that, deep down, underneath all the crap, the world was beautiful.

So I dug deep down, underneath the crap, and I found not just more crap but some truly terrifying thimgs. Some things that make Cthulhu look like a rubbery Godzilla monster. I couldn't just write beautiful worlds because that's what Lewis and Tolkien believed underlay everything (though I desperately wanted to—want to—believe they were right). I had to do what they did and write what I saw underneath it all.

And what did I see underneath it all? Well, if there are angels and demons, they have a lot more in common with each other than with us. The Christian tradition sells itself as a faith of comfort and love, but its central image is a man spiked to a scaffold to appease an angry father and a world visited by twenty-one apocalypses by that same God.

Maurice Broaddus, an author for whom I have high regard, recently said that faith lends itself quite easily to the horror genre. Perhaps that's because faith, as Lewis said, teaches you that the dufus sitting beside you is an immortal soul and that your actions toward said dufus have eternal consequences. But Maurice and I come down on opposite ends of that observation. If faith lends itself to horror, it is because at its core rests some very terrifying ideas. For there to be salvation, there must first (and predominantly) be damnation. Much of the horror in Angel of Death comes from making many biblical ideas literally true.

HM: It is like you are reading my mind. Although it seems quite Emo to state so: the world is very much a terrifying place and faith does add more fuel to the flames. On Twitter, you stated you felt quite uncomfortable giving your mother a copy of ‘Angel of Death’. What happened, when you did?

JRK: My mother is a saint, first of all, so thank you for asking after her health. She has read everything I have published—twenty-four books and counting—even though some of it was not what she would enjoy. As I said, she's the Mother Teresa of book critics.

But I knew Angel of Death would be too much for even my sainted mother. I've always been somewhat morose, and when I was a kid, I relied on my mom to be the well of optimism from which I could endlessly draw. I rely on my wife now for that—and she suffered her way through Angel of Death despite my warnings.

It's not a very sunny book.

There's an old saying that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Well, the two angels in my life were justifiably worried about reading this novel, but as the perennial fool, I gave it to them anyway.

HM: You have published many novels in many genres, but I think ‘Angel of Death’ is perhaps the most provocative and daring. Did you have a hard time, making sure you do not a cross a certain line, namely the one between tasteful gore and meaningless torture porn?

JRK: That's a very good question. The fact was that when I set out to write Angel of Death fourteen years ago, I was planning it as a modern urban fantasy. A friend of mine, though, said, it had to be realistic. He recommended a number of books about actual serial killers and FBI profilers. What I read horrified and sickened me—but also educated me about what real monsters were.

I mentioned Cthulhu earlier. People like to lift him up as the hardest core evil one can encounter—an Elder God. But just today, I was watching a funny video (sent by an efriend for free) about a bunch of other plush dolls accidentally opening a box that released the plush Cthulhu. This was funny because Cthulhu is an inconceivable evil.

True evil lurks around us. It does unspeakable things daily. Worse, as you discovered in Angel of Death, true evil lurks within us. And, in some ways, the comfortable fantasies we weave about the nature of evil allow true evil to grow and thrive.

I made a choice fourteen years ago when I wrote the first draft, and then repeatedly over the intervening years with revision after revision I upheld the choice, that I was not going to shy away from depicting evil as it is. It's not because I like it, but because I hate it. And I want readers to recognize that evil is not a video game boss or a golf star caught cheating.

Yes, I've written an appalling book about an appalling topic.

HM: What is ‘Angel of Death’ genre-wise? I have a hard time placing it. My picks are urban fantasy and paranormal horror, but I bet the answer is inconclusive.

JRK: Inconclusive is a good answer. There was a reviewer I read who seemed to like the book other than that she couldn't figure out its genre. Another reviewer complained that the book wasn't sure what genre it was.

I'm guilty on both counts. Angel of Death is actually three books, as you know, divided by the main character's own thinking about himself. In that sense, it is a very schizophrenic work, and you aren't supposed to be able to lock it down.

HM: While reading, for a moment I did believe that Samael was indeed human and that he had these delusions. It was messed up and intense, because I did not know what to believe in that middle. Did this effect surface on its own or was it planned?

JRK: Those who have had a bit of literary theory will say that my book has an unreliable narrator. They are right, of course, but what they are missing is that every narrator is unreliable. The idea of a reliable narrator is like the idea of unbiased media. All media has a bias, and all narrators are unreliable.

What I was trying to do in Angel of Death is show how all of us are trapped in our own minds, and thus are unreliable narrators of our own lives. As such, we weave our own interpretations of what is happening to us. In that sense, Angel of Death covers a lot of the same ground as Shutter Island. The main difference is that people who read or watch Shutter Island get to come away with their minds intact, feeling as if they are looking at the insanity from outside. People coming away from Angel of Death are looking at insanity from the inside.

HM: What is the appeal behind cross-genre? When the reader hears fantasy for instance, he/she knows what their signing up for, but for cross-genre it’s not so simple.

JRK: You're absolutely right. Genres are invented by the book industry to make consumption of ideas easy. Genres are like intellectual fast food. What do you want? McDonalds? Pizza Hut? Taco Bell? It doesn't matter which McDonalds or Pizza Hut or Taco Bell, because in these franchises, everything is pretty much the same, store to store. You know what you're going to get. It's standardized. Mechanized. Industrialized. In fact, if you're eating a Big Mac in London and I'm eating one in Chicago, we're probably swallowing parts of the same cow, mixed with a hundred thousand others and spread out across the globe in a layer of ground-up animal one-patty thick.

The cross-genre approach is a little different. Say you happened into this weird, one-of-a-kind greasy spoon cafe that's got this brilliant cook. He makes the most amazing things. He makes foods you never tasted before. But you're never quite sure what you're going to get because he only works with whatever he can get fresh and he's not very good at keeping a running stock of stuff. Oh, and he's a freak.

But the food is incredible.

All right, so where do you want to eat? You can have fast food. It will be fine, tasty, high-calorie, government-regulated—and exactly what you expect. Or you could have whatever the hell that crazy fuck at the cafe wants to cook, knowing you'll never have tasted something like this and you never will again?

Unfortunately, our society is geared toward Big Mac novels instead of real thought experiments. Fortunately, every reader still gets to decide what she or he will eat.

HM: Angels are on the rise right at the moment. What is your take on the fad? What did angels have to push attention away from vampires and demons? Also what prompted you to pick them as a subject?

JRK: I'd like to say that I consciously selected the angel trope from the current zeitgeist and wove a fitting story around it. In fact, since this book started fourteen years ago, I more accurately created something at exactly the wrong time and held onto it until exactly the right time.

That they are on the rise at the moment makes me supremely glad. As to how angels usurped vampires and demons, let's face it: They're all the same. Beautiful, immortal, inhuman, unforgiving. It's not an accident that the vampire/demon love interest in Buffy was named Angel. These archetypes are that close.

HM: I dig serial killers and the Son of Samael was a thrilling character to read. How many hours did you invest in your research to bring such realism to the image of a serial killer?

JRK: I read quite a few true-crime books—bloody and horrible—and then channeled the rest of it. It was alarming to me how easy it was to slip into the serial-killer mindset. You would think that that thought process would be totally alien to a normal human being, but it is not. Here's a little thought experiment that will make all of your readers think like a serial killer with just the substitution of one word.

All right, here's the normal-person passage:

“I couldn't believe it. I spread my towel out on the beach, and there was this super-hot woman sitting on a towel near mine. She looked at me. I could tell she was into me. I smiled, and she pulled down her bikini top, showing me her tan line and a little more. I got up from my towel and sat down on hers to find out what I could give her.”

Now, here's the psycho passage, with just word substituted.

“I couldn't believe it. I spread my towel out on the beach, and there was this super hot woman sitting on a towel near mine. It looked at me. I could tell it was into me. I smiled, and it pulled down its bikini top, showing me its tan line and a little more. I got up from my towel and sat down on its to find out what I could give it.”

You see, changing her to it dehumanizes the other person. When the main character perceives another person in the story as a thing, all interactions become monstrous. Sadly, this very thing happens not just in the minds of serial killers but also in those of politicians and scientists and businesspeople and your next door neighbor. That's what this book is about.

HM: This seems to be a new direction horror has taken. Today, monsters rarely make us shiver [since urban fantasy and paranormal romance has objectified them into sexual fantasies, though I am not complaining], but the human element in horror is much more potent.

JRK: We all want to be the hero of our own story. That drive is so primal that we will invent elaborate fictions in order to keep ourselves heroic and blameless. So, for everyone, the heroic quest rings true. I'm a misunderstood and undersized hero pitted against villains who far exceed me in every way, but I will win, because the universe likes me.

This is a comforting perspective, but I'm convinced it is also the thought process that leads to Columbine shootings and suicide bombings. Those kids (let's face it, they all were kids) who thought that the horrific acts they did were justified did not see themselves as villains. They saw themselves as heroes attacking an irredeemably corrupt world.

The problem is that all the rest of us live in this world. And when you attack it, you kill us.

So, the only thing more horrible than a high school shooter or a suicide bomber is one of these idealists realizing that he isn't the hero but the villain. It's a miserable place to be, but it is also the next step on the heroic journey.

HM: What is your current writing project?

JRK: So glad you asked. I just finished a novel called Death's Disciples, which is a follow-on to Angel of Death but is not nearly as soul-rending. Death's Disciples is plenty dark, of course—a romp through the biblical apocalypse, but it is much lighter in mood. In Cohen brother's terms, Angel of Death is No Country for Old Men, while Death's Disciples is Burn After Reading. Yeah, the sensibility is still black, but the outcome is laughter instead of tears.

I'm also working up two new novel ideas, one that follows the lineage of Death's Disciples and another that follows the lineage of Angel of Death. I'm hoping my robot overlords like one of the two. Those guys are awesome to work with, and I'm itching to get writing.

HM: Now let’s shift the focus to Angry Robot Books. As you might know I have an imprint crush, so to say, on these guys [plus the authors, always the authors] and I want to know how the authors see their publisher. What’s the best thing to come to mind about Angry Robot Books?

JRK: All right, let me tell you the truth about Angry Robot Books and about myself. These guys spent a lot of time working on tie-in fiction for various groups, and so did I. They did great work, and so did I, on properties that belonged to someone else. And then, at last, someone said—”How about an imprint of your own, in which you could publish only the stuff you really love?” And Marco and Lee and Chris passed it along to us authors and said, “How about an imprint of your own, in which you could publish only the stuff you really love?” I've written and published over twenty novels, and I've been waiting for someone to speak those words to me.

And that's why this is such a great match. Marco and Lee are seasoned enough to recognize what an incredible opportunity this imprint provides, and so am I. We all want to make sure it works. These two guys have turned out to be nearly prophetic in deciding what titles will work. Their authors, too, have risen above themselves to provide the works they'd always hoped someone would want.

Angry Robot is a dream come true not only for editors and authors but also for readers. You strip away all that corporate crap that keeps churning out crap, and you get real writers communicating with real readers. How could you ask for more?

HM: Can you tell our readers how you became an Angry Robot author? Submission process, proposals, the whole nine yards.

JRK: I am so lucky in that regard. A friend and editor of mine was a friend of Marco and knew he was looking for cool titles. My friend, Jim Lowder, also knew I had a supernatural thriller that had recently been cancelled by Wizards of the Coast because it was not appropriate for a game publisher such as Hasbro. Well, Jim wrote to me, saying that Marc was looking for urban fantasy, but was not that interested in horror. He said, “How much does Angel of Death lean toward horror?” I told him that not only did it lean, but it fell in with a red splash. He asked me to send it anyway, and I did, and Marco and Lee loved it. So, I got in because I knew one cool guy who knew two others, but also because I wrote a novel that did what they were looking for.

HM: What is the experience to work with Lee Harris?

JRK: Lee is terrific. I panicked just before Angel of Death came out. I saw what I considered spurious information on Amazon Australia, which seemed to indicate that instead of coming out in August of 2009, it would come out in January of 2009—a date that had already passed. It also indicated that the book would be about $20 Australian. I wrote to Marco in a panic, and Lee answered gently, reminding me that English and Australian folk put the day before the month (something I had known), and so I had misread the release, and that Australians pay a shitload for books (something I had no known). In the end, I was very glad Lee was there to talk me down from the ledge.

In fact, I was so glad, I named a character in homage to him in Death's Disciples.

HM: These days publishing is a war front carried out between publicists, where the marketing campaign equals military strategy [exaggerated, but good analogy, me thinks]. Do you mind sharing a bit of inside information about how the marketing for your novel progressed? Did you work closely with the imprint and what was the strategy?

JRK: These days, marketing is not glossy ads in Publishers Weekly. These days, marketing is engaging the audience in a one-for-one way on social media. This was a new lesson for me. I not only launched a new website, but also became a frequent presence on Twitter, connecting to fans and other tweeps.

The marketing strategy is simple: create buzz. Now, certain gorgeous personalities can do so by pulling up in a red convertible and stepping out in a miniskirt without underwear. I tried that strategy once, and the fourteen days I spent in lockup told me I needed a different marketing approach.

All right, so here it is the thousandth time for people who aren't paying attention: Social media is about being social. It's a big party, and the point is to meet as many people as possible and talk with them about what they are doing. If one of those people asks what you're doing, don't be shy. Let them know. But you've got to mingle. You've got to hang out. You've got to be there so when the great conversation happens, you're part of it.

I tell you, folks, Twitter is The Moveable Feast on steroids. Hemmingway and Pound are there. Show up, and you can talk with them.

HM: While on the subject, I have been reading from authors, agents and editors that if one plans to succeed as an author, one must have a strong platform. Very Zen and also a notch challenging. Do you methodically pursuit exposure as a professional in order to generate sales and what are the tools you use?

JRK: A platform is very wise for politicians and anyone who wants to be popular. The problem is that most writers are the brainy type that shunned student council elections.

I'm an old guy at 43. That means, I've got 25 published novels, and five or six unpublished ones that keep getting no's. I have written high fantasy and gritty science fiction, Victorian mystery and spatter horror. Each of these is a platform, more for publishers than for writers. It convinces them that they can sell the book.

But writers don't care much about platforms. They care about characters and stories. If the characters and story aren't working, the platform doesn't matter. If the characters and stories are working, the platform doesn't matter either. So, in a way, the platform is just the wooden pallet that holds the ideas of a story.

Having said that, there are some very successful writers who have found a clear platform—one story that they like and their fans like, and they tell that same story over and over. Their fans know just what to expect. Some stars are the same way. They're always themselves—Jennifer Aniston, I'm talking about you—and people come to see Jennifer Aniston.

Other stars, however, are always someone else. They don't have an identifiable platform. Johnny Depp played Edward Scissorhands and Gilbert Grape and Ed Wood and Hunter S. Thompson—each time making himself somebody completely different. These were terrific characters in terrific films, but Depp had only a cult following. Then he played a terrific character in an okay film. Captain Jack Sparrow struck gold for him, but the whole time he was making the film, he had to fight Disney, who said he was ruining the movie.

He doesn't have to fight anybody anymore.

So, not having a platform can take a lot longer to build up a following. It also requires the happy accident of having one book hit in just the right way, at just the right time. But once such a book hits, the future is wide open. You've made it not because of one character or one story, but because of sheer talent, so you aren't pigeonholed writing one story over and over.

That would be like being chained to a rock and having eagles pluck out your liver every day.

HM: Modern culture is brimming with paranormal retellings [desecrations, really] of well known stories and biographies of iconic figures. I am speaking about Queen Victoria: Demon Killer and Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. There is even a movie about DaVinci in the making in the same vibe. You have written an Arthurian fantasy trilogy with well known characters, which roughly translates to what this current trend is all about. I digress a bit, but what I am getting at is whether you personally tolerate these renditions of history and well known works or do you tisk?

JRK: I haven't actually read any of the examples you give, but I'm not particularly inclined to tisk. There are no sacred cows, as far as I am concerned.

You mention my Arthurian trilogy, which was a matter of taking on twelve hundred years of story telling and fifteen hundred years of history. But Geoffrey of Monmoth's Arthur was not Malory's Arthur was not White's Arthur was not mine. Everybody has to invent his or her retelling, and everybody has to make this ancient and brilliant story also completely modern and relevant.

So, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies doesn't diminish Austen's accomplishment. It only amplifies it. I'd love if, in two hundred years, people were riffing off my books. We'll see if I make anythng that lasts that long.

HM: To keep the mood light and funny, which historic figure would make for a good read in an alternative demonic history?

JRK: There was something supremely spooky going on at the turn of the twentieth century. There was twelve-tone music and Dada art and this almost demonic rejection of order—all of it clustered around The World War, which was, in a way, a demonic eruption. It was almost as if Satan had done some cruel calculus, trying to find the one murderous act that could trigger millions of others, and he found it in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The Black Hand—are you kidding me? How Satanic is that? Then there's trench warfare and mustard gas and millions dead. And cap it all off with an influenza epidemic made possible by the crowding of soldiers in camps and the shipping of soldiers from place to place. Yes, I think a demonic history of World War I would not have to stray that far from actual events.

HM: What is the most important thing you have learned as a writer?

JRK: Writing is itself the most important thing you can do. If you write—I mean really work at it and keep going—all other obstacles will fall before you. You will improve. You will learn what works and what doesn't. You will create crap but also brilliance, and you can always cut out the crap. If you write, you will get your mind moving, and you will discover things you would never have thought otherwise. The physical and mental work of writing is the miracle itself.

If you don't write, you aren't a writer, just as if you don't lift weights, you aren't a weightlifter. Thinking about writing isn't writing any more than thinking about lifing weights is weightlifting.

HM: Thank you so much for keeping up with this invasion into your privacy. Please conclude with your own words.

JRK: Last words are so difficult, so I will not rely on my own. Instead, I will quote the Bard of Avon, who said, “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” I will also quote the Bard of Knoxberry Farms, who said:

Pointy birds, oh, pointy pointy!

Anoint my head. Anointy nointy!